Wednesday, May 09, 2012

The March 1959 issue of Esquire contains a sketchbook featuring some gorgeous reportage artwork by Richard Green.

The title page suggests Green was both the artist of this feature and a race car driver, though it's not made clear if he drove at that actual event.

Green turned in some really lively drawings, beautifully executed. They were originally reproduced at an unfortunate small size...

... so I took the liberty of blowing them up individually for your viewing pleasure.

About a year later, Richard Green's work appeared again in Esquire - this time for a fashion feature.

So was Richard Green primarily a fashion illustrator? I must admit I didn't search far and wide for information on the artist. But this small sampling of Green's work raises an interesting thought: that fashion illustrators are, by the nature of their specialty, ideally suited to do reportage art as well. Consider, for instance, Francis Marshall another example of just such an artist.

Returning momentarily to yesterday's post, its also noteworthy that Al Parker and Richard Green used such dramatically different ways of interpreting very similar subject matter.